


Choice Of Response

by yonderdarling



Series: The Grand Sci-Fi Fuckathon of Hitler and Stalin [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Again, Canon Bisexual Character, Doctor Dad, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Sex Pollen, Without the Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 02:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5112980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/pseuds/yonderdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"CLAUSE I. SEXUAL INTERCOURSE - Due to currently-unavoidable biological urges (referred to by Dr. Martha Jones as the Insatiable Need to Breed effect), both parties shall engage in intercourse with express consent (verbal or written) from both parties given each time; hugging is not a prerequisite, as is nothing with lips. Orgasms are required. Intercourse shall be engaged in on pre-organised occasions as detailed in 'The Great Sex Timetable of Rassilon.'" A follow-up to a very serious fanfic on the nature of biology, a very serious fanfic on the nature of legal contracts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice Of Response

**Author's Note:**

> This is double the length of its predecessor and makes half the sense. Go figure. You'll probably need to read 'Minimum Viable Population' for this to make a lick of sense. 
> 
> Thanks to Ilana and Lisa for being proofreaders, walls to bounce ideas off, and cheerleaders. I think I nicked the donkey-fucking troglodyte line from Lisa, which would explain why it's my favourite quip. Thanks to Ilana for letting me ramble at her constantly, usually while we were both trying to finish uni work.

 

 

 

> **A TREATY, BETWEEN THE LORD DOCTOR AND LADY MISTRESS, ENDLINGS OF THE TIME GENTRY CLASS OF THE GALLIFREYAN [DOMINANT] RACE OF THE PLANET GALLIFREY (translated to British-Australian English [just roll with it] from the original Gallifreyan)**
> 
>  
> 
> **We, the undersigned [The Lord DOCTOR of the House Lungbarrow and the Lady MISTRESS of the House Oakdown {For full titles please see Appendix A, pages 1-4 for the DOCTOR and pages 5-10 for the MISTRESS}], have come to an agreement upon the following terms**
> 
>  
> 
> **i. SEXUAL INTERCOURSE - Due to currently-unavoidable biological urges (referred to by Dr. Martha Jones as the Insatiable Need to Breed effect), both parties shall engage in intercourse with express consent (verbal or written) from both parties given each time; hugging is not a prerequisite, as is nothing with lips. Orgasms are required. Intercourse shall be engaged in on pre-organised occasions as detailed in** **' The Great Sex Timetable of Rassilon' The Sex Roster ** **the SCHEDULE [see Appendix B]. ADDENDUM: If extenuating circumstances lead to pre-organised orgasms not being met, it falls to the party who did not show up to make up for the missed appointment. This clause and the attached SCHEDULE [Appendix B] are null and void in entirety once one or both parties regenerates in a gender that voids the Insatiable Need to Breed effect.**
> 
>  

* * *

 

PART ZERO: PROLOGUE

Clara Oswald was in her mid-twenties. She'd loved and lost, and lusted and lost (and won, but that was a different kind of story for a different time). She'd had flings and one night stands and relationships and Danny, and she was a time and space traveller and she was -- _never going to get to sleep._

The thumping grew louder. She growled, pulled the pillow off her head, rolled over in her TARDIS bunk. Snatched up the broom leaning against her bedside table. An infinite number of rooms, corridors that grew longer or shorter depending on what mood you were in, literally bigger on the inside and for some reason-

She could still hear the Doctor and Missy….engaging….in their…weekly? Monthly? Session. The schedule was beyond her, and when hers and the Doctor's timelines didn't match up - yeah, she could hear moaning. 

Clara awkwardly thrust - no, don't think that word - the broom handle up over her head and against the wall her bed was against. She banged the broom against the wall a few times, paused to listen. Her lip curled. Was it getting - even louder? They _were_. Well, one was. _That bitch_. 

"Shut up shut up shut UP!" Clara yelled, banging the broom a few more times.

The thumping abruptly stopped, which hopefully meant they were done. Clara breathed out. She ran a hand down her face, rolled back onto her side. It took her a long time to get back to sleep.  

 

The next morning she walked into the kitchen in her pyjamas to find an immaculately-dressed Missy eating scrambled eggs with smug gusto. 

"You could just move rooms," said the Time Lady, pouring Clara a cup of tea. "Eggs?"

"I'm good, thanks," said Clara, setting the coffeemaker up instead. "I did move rooms. The TARDIS moved me back."

"She's a fickle beast." Missy reached back and patted the wall companionably. The lights flickered, and the cutlery on the table rattled ominously. "So very touchy."

"Just keep it down, next time? Didn't you ever live in a sharehouse?"

Missy pointed at her with her fork. "We have a roster. I can print you a copy. Put it on your fridge."

"I'm not putting your sex roster on my fridge!"

"It's in Gallifreyan anyway. Do you have a smartphone? I'll whip you up an app."

"Don't touch my phone."

The Doctor wandered in, holding a small strip of metal. Missy used her fork to point at him this time, and said something in Gallifreyan. The Doctor replied in the same, though Clara was sure she heard her own name in the strange language.

Missy rolled her eyes. "Is that an inhibitor?" she asked.

"Yes. You have to wear it if you want to get into the TARDIS. Won't let you do anything to control the machine though."

"Do I have a choice here? What if I promise not to do anything naughty."

"I have a duty of care," said the Doctor dryly, and Clara smiled into her coffee.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

> **ii. THE SEARCH FOR GALLIFREY - Due to the abovementioned SEXUAL INTERCOURSE CLAUSE both in order to make effective use of time outside of the biological imperative to engage in intercourse; in addition to allaying the fears of any and all of the DOCTOR's COMPANIONS both parties shall make efforts towards the locating and retrieval of the planet GALLIFREY in order to restore it and its people safely and peacefully to this universe.**
> 
>  

* * *

 

PART ONE: DENIAL

 

"Doctor, is this Missy's hat?" Clara asked, holding Missy's hat up between her thumb and forefinger.

The Doctor looked up from where he was tuning his guitar. "No," he said. "….all Time Gentry have hats like that."

"All the Time Lords and Ladies wear hats like this." 

"They're um, ceremonial."

"Mm-hmm." 

"Weird collars, weird hats. As a people, we don't get out much. Didn't." The Doctor played a few notes on the guitar, twiddled with one of the knobs. 

"Okay," said Clara, putting the hat down and bringing something out from behind her back. "And these women's tights I found hanging off the bannister in the room with all the books in Gallifreyan?"

"Why are you in the library with all the Gallifreyan books?"

"Oh," said Clara. She reached into a pocket. "I was following these shirt buttons that were scattered down the corridor, almost like someone tore a shirt off without unbuttoning it first."

The Doctor began to play a small riff. He reached over and turned the volume on the amp up.

"Seriously?" Clara asked.

"I do a lot of things when you're not around Clara. What I do with women's tights is my own business. I could have needed to strain something through the fabric."

"In the library?"

"What I do in the library with women's tights is my own business."

Clara breathed out through her nose. She strode across, placed the supposedly ceremonial Time Gentry hat (with symbolic cherry and flower decoration) on the Doctor's head at a jaunty angle, and wandered out again. The strains of a wicked-sick electric guitar solo followed her through the halls of the TARDIS. 

 

* * *

 

"We're not having sex, Clara. We are looking for Gallifrey," said the Doctor, over scones. "We need to be in the same room to do the necessary equations. We work better as a team -faster, smarter. I need that different perspective. And, I hate to admit it, but Missy is actually better at transdimensional quadratic theory than I could ever hope to be - with theoretical and lived experience." He poured Clara another cup of tea, looked past her at the entrance. "And, she's here."

Theoretically, Clara knew the rules of behaviour in Stuart-era coffeehouses, but that didn't stop her turning around so fast that she knocked the table and the cutlery rattled. She turned back to the Doctor, her hair flipping round her face in an adorable, flustered manner. "You invited the Mistress to tea with us?"

"This was her idea. Said you needed to," he made circles in the air with his hand. "Acclimatize to the idea of her being around."

"Oh," said Clara. "Considering she murdered my boyfriend, tried to destroy the world-"

"- Masqueraded as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, fooled the last of humanity into sailing off into the blackness of dying space, turned everyone on earth into versions of themself, turned into a snake thing at one point and, that was a confusing weekend, was a cat-person who tried to kill me, invaded the planet with plastic dummies, was a crispy version of themself who tried to kill me-"

"Are we reminiscing?" Missy asked brightly, taking a seat at the table. "Because if I remember correctly, you were also trying to kill me at some of those points. Who set who on fire way back when I wore that brilliant collar?"

"That collar," said the Doctor. "Was an abomination. And that was the body where I wore celery."

"Gallifrey," said Clara, clearing her throat. She'd attended parent-teacher interviews where the parents were divorced. The vibe was similar, but older. It just made it pettier. She'd deal with the revelation that Missy was Margaret Thatcher later. _That_ explained so much.

"We're looking for Gallifrey," said Missy, putting her napkin in her lap and nabbing a cake. 

"Yes, I've gleaned that," Clara said, also taking a pastry. "I thought you knew where it was."

"I lied. I tend to do that," said Missy. "It's like - I know what dimension Gallifrey is in. We just don't know where in that dimension, nor how to access that dimension in the first place - bringing Gallifrey through, like the Doctor wants," here Missy rolled her eyes, "is basically inconceivable at this point. I'm sure I'll think of something. We." She gestured vaguely at the Doctor. 

"Next question," said Clara. "Why do you want to find it? I know why the Doctor does, but what's your angle?"

"I am a great and terrible war criminal," Missy said, like she was announcing she'd won second prize in a beauty contest. The Doctor raised an eyebrow but said nothing. "Both on Gallifrey and elsewhere. If - when, the Doctor finds Gallifrey, I will be hunted as a fugitive by the Time Lords - war crimes, because someone has to answer for those, cowardice, treason, genetic engineering - that was the Rani, mostly. If I help the Doctor restore Gallifrey, I am a hero - or at least, one of those antiheroes from the 1990s. There's no sentiment here. It's pragmatism."

Clara frowned. "And that's it?"

"That's all."

"You have a deal to not damage the earth while you're allied?" Clara said. 

"You told her that?" Missy turned to the Doctor.

He shrugged."She did ask, why you hadn't done anything evil here for a while."

"Yeah, well Britain in the 1980s suffered enough," muttered Clara. "So you have a treaty to not harm the earth-" Missy's lip curled, Clara smiled. "Oh, Doctor, well done. You have a treaty to protect the Earth while you're working together."

"From outside threats," the Doctor said. "Antibiotic-resistant bugs and global warming, you're on your own."

"And that's all you're doing?" Clara said suspiciously, remembering what she'd seen a scant few weeks back - her time - outside of Coal Hill. "When you find Gallifrey you'll part ways, and hopefully behave yourselves? Keep your hands - off each other?"

The Doctor and Missy exchanged glances. They probably thought they were being subtle. Clara shrugged, picked up the milk.

"Oh - no. I poisoned that one," said Missy quickly, and the Doctor dropped his head into his hands. Clara put the little pitcher down and picked up the lemon slices. "What? Force of habit."

 

* * *

 

"Missy and I aren't having sex."

"I never - I never asked that, I asked why weren't you surprised to see her now, if we thought she was dead after what happened on Buena Eiraka?"

"I can explain how I survived-"

"Shut up, Missy. Doctor - "

"Do you two really need to have this conversation now? There are five ravenous Fyerewalken coming this way."

"I count six."

"Why can we never agree on what counts as five or six, Doctor?"

"Okay, there's seven - I think we need to run now!"

 

* * *

 

"Doctor?" Clara called, shutting the TARDIS door behind her. "You home?"

The console room was suspiciously empty. She crept up to the console itself, did a turn of the room. Nothing.

"Clara!" came the shout, and the Doctor hurried into the room, fully clothed but missing one boot. "You're early!"

"No, you landed the TARDIS in my house - usually that means you're ready, assuming I'm ready and we're both gonna just - phwizz - " said Clara, making a little flying gesture with her hand. She looked closer at the Doctor. His cardigan was buttoned wrong. His hair was usually a bit scruffy if he'd been working on something, but it was kind of flat at the back - 

"Yes. Ah. I am. I was."

Clara saw the purple coat lying  over the bannister.

"Looking for Gallifrey?" she asked. "Is Missy still here, or did she forget her coat?"

"Yes!" said the Doctor, pointing at her. "That is most definitely it. We were working on some equations to track Time Lord consciousness, and now, now- she's….taking a nap."

"Worked her hard, did you?" Clara said dryly. 

"Quindimensional physics," the Doctor said. "Are very taxing, especially on the being who is attempting to interface with, the, subparticle waves in the fifth dimension."

"Did you successfully interface with the subparticle waves?"

"Depends on how well you understand quindimensional physics."

"You have lipstick on your collar."

Missy chose that moment to saunter in, looking odd without her jacket and her hair down rather than in that ridiculous updo. 

"So Missy, how did the interfacing go?" Clara asked, folding her arms and leaning against the console. "Successfully engage?"

"Several times," said Missy. The Doctor made a noise in the back of his throat. Clara twitched. "Walls, desk, floor."

"Excuse me?"

Missy made a show of putting on her coat, looked over at the Doctor. "Yes," she said slowly. "Quindimensional physics require alternative angles. Desk, floor, walls. Had to go on my knees a few times." The Doctor was turning a nice shade of red. Bitterly, Clara was enjoying his embarrassment. "I don't expect you humans to fully understand the needs of Time Lord….technology."

"I may have a closer understanding than you think."

"Well then," said Missy, straightening her brooch. "I'll be getting off here." She hip-checked Clara on the way out. "We should get together sometime Clara, have some fun. Girltime without all these annoying men and their machines around."

The door slammed behind her.

"I." began the Doctor. 

"I need a shower, before we go anywhere," said Clara, brushing past him.

"You're not the only one," muttered the Doctor to the empty console room. 

 

* * *

 

Clara walked into the igloo to see the Doctor, which was expected, and Missy, who had not to her knowledge been present on this planet, making out against a wall. Enthusiastically. She turned on her heel and marched straight out into the icy wind of whatever stupid single-biome planet this was, nodding at the rebel princess and her rugged space pirate boyfriend as she went. 

 

* * *

 

The Doctor took her to meet Gilbert and Sullivan, crime-solving in 1920s Melbourne, and to what they figured must have been a fourth version of Atlantis, only this one was way in the future as opposed to the past. Something with time loops went down while they were there. Clara tried to shake the whole confusing episode off as the Doctor flew her home. 

"I'll see you Doctor - unless you want to hang out for a bit," she said, striding towards the TARDIS doors and pushing them open to reveal her kitchen. "What the-"

Someone had broken in and trashed - no, not trashed the place. Someone had broken in and taken apart the blender, kettle and her electric can opener, lining all the parts up in neat rows on the floor and bench.

"- hell."

Footsteps. Clara and the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, carefully in between the rows of parts, holding their breath. They waited, hearts pounding until Missy rounded the TARDIS from the living room, carrying what looked like part of Clara's radio.

The Doctor said something in another language. Clara settled for another rendition of the now-familiar tune, "What the hell, Missy?"

"I thought you weren't meant to be interfering on Earth."

Missy looked at the Doctor. "Can't you smell them?" 

"Don't be weird-" Clara began, but the Doctor inhaled deeply, and Clara followed suit. It smelt like lime jelly and burning tyres, and something cold. The Doctor crossed to the window, carefully avoiding the rows of mechanical parts, and opened the blind. Daylight flooded the kitchen, but it was wrong - green-tinged and sickly, not the usual grey-tinged sickliness of a London sky. 

"Mangorians?" the Doctor asked, resting his hand against the glass.

"Feel how warm it is?" 

Clara crossed the room, touched the glass. It was warm, her fingers growing tacky against the surface. "What are Mangorians?"

"Useless scavengers, once. People basically used their planet as a scrapyard when for whatever reasons, usually if they couldn't access deep space or get a permit for Pluto." said Missy. She rummaged through one of Clara's kitchen drawers and came out with her Kitchenaid. "May I?" At Clara's blank look, Missy snapped it in half with her bare hands and began yanking wires out of the plastic casing. "Once useless scavengers, kept down by invaders to other planets in their system taking over and putting the pressure on."

"What happened to make them less useless?"

"The Daleks," said the Doctor grimly, picking up off the stove and examining what looked like the remnants of Clara's hairdryer. "Defeated the invaders, freed up the system. Came for the Mangorians. The planet held the Dalek fleets off for three days before the Shadow Proclamation moved in to assist. Shadow Proclamation put the Mangorians in charge of rebuilding the other planets around them-"

"The Mangorians took over the planets, didn't they," said Clara.

"Mmmm," Missy said, and began using her collected parts of copper wire to string Clara's forks together. "Trying to expand their stupid, limey empire. Fortunately, they use CC electricity on their planet and ships; AC or DC is anathemic to them."

"What?"

"Alternate Current, Direct Current, Convalescent Current."

"They're allergic to Earth electricity," said the Doctor. 

"That makes zero sense," Clara said."Like, I'm not even a science teacher and that makes no-"

"So these are, going to be grenades, Missy? Carrying enough of an Earth-electric charge to stun-"

"To kill," said the Mistress. "If we're doing this at all, my dear Doctor, we're doing it my way." She produced a shopping bag bulging with different kinds of batteries, from A to triple A to those big ones with the giant springs that can brain a cat. "Borrowed these from your neighbours. Let's get to work. We've about seven hours before the ships start firebombing key strategic points."

 

And that was the story of how Missy, assisted by the Doctor and Clara, defeated the intergalactically feared Mangorian raiding fleet with the contents of an average British flat. 

 

"When we get Gallifrey back," said Missy, over dinner in a half-destroyed restaurant a few hours later, hair slightly singed. "Remind me to set the army on those stupid beasts."

"Romana won't let that fly, even if you could work it around the non-interference clauses." the Doctor said. "Pass the salt."

Clara passed it. "Who's Romana?"

"President in exile," said Missy, before the Doctor got a chance to interject. "The Gallifreyan President can also be the head of the Time Lord Armies if they so choose. Thank you," she said to the slightly tousled waitress who'd valiantly stayed to serve them after they'd saved most of the kitchen. The waitress deposited the jelly babies on the table and left with a vacant smile. "I could probably convince her. Romana and I became quite good friends in prison."

"Romana hated you."

"Romana hated me before the war. War changes people. You know that better than most."

Clara looked across at the Doctor, whose gaze became fixed on his plate. She looked at her own food.

"Not as much as you fear," said Missy brightly. "Now, new topic. My dear Doctor, do you feel the need to engage in coitus or shall we keep our usual appointment? I don't want to make an assumption and have to fulfil the addendum to clause I of our agreement."

She was so tired, that instead of the usual repulsion and anger at Missy's question - and the whole, compulsion to engage, whatever Martha Jones called it, concept - Clara began to giggle into her slightly ashy creme brulee. The Doctor threw down his fork and ran his hands down his face, leaving black streaks. 

"Ah," he said. 

"You too tired?" Missy asked, in a pitying tone.

Clara just laughed harder, leaning over until her face was nearly in her dessert.

"Keep to the schedule," the Doctor finally muttered, viciously spearing his own food. "Clara. Shut it."

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

> **iii. PROTECTION OF EARTH - Until the restoration of GALLIFREY the DOCTOR and the MISTRESS will work together or as individuals in the PROTECTION of EARTH from outsider threats. Further, until the restoration of GALLIFREY the DOCTOR and the MISTRESS are both bound in equal measure, to not commit acts on, within or around EARTH that may or shall result in the enslavement/damage/destruction of the planet and its included species.**
> 
>  

* * *

 

PART ZERO POINT TWO: NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

 

The TARDIS was brightly lit and wonderfully warm when Clara stepped inside, dressed warmly against the January chill of Coal Hill. The Doctor was up on one of the upper levels of the console room, pouring over a piece of paper he'd stuck to the blackboard. The paper itself was covered in beautiful swirling lines of Gallifreyan, in black, purple and gold ink. As she watched, stepping up beside him, the Doctor added a small, slanted cross in purple to one of the corner circles. 

"What's that?" she asked. She folded her arms and pursed her lips to match his own pose. The Doctor didn't notice. "Doctor?"

The Doctor looked over at her, took in her pose and frowned even harder.

"'S the roster," he said, looking back at the paper. 

Clara felt a sense of foreboding. 

"Doctor, why do you need a roster?"

Down the stairs he went, coattails waving behind him.

"Doctor?"

"Do you still want to see Wilfred Owen's reading, or do you feel like doing something a little lighter?" the Time Lord said. "I mean, I'm all for poetry but postwar poets can be so dreary. Disneyland on the day of its opening, on the other hand-"

"You don't want to take me to Disneyland," said Clara, who really wanted to go to Disneyland. "What's the roster for?"

"It's for me."

Clara frowned, followed the Doctor down to the console, where he'd become enthralled in examining the scanner screen; outside it showed people struggling down the streets in the cold afternoon. "You don't need a roster. You kind of just do things, as you see fit. Just whenever. Or well, things happen to you. People happen - " the cold feeling of foreboding grew in her chest, across her shoulders. "People happen to you. Does this have anything to do with Missy?"

They'd seen the Time Lady a few weeks previously, decidedly not dead from their last meeting when she'd certainly appeared to be dead (a volcano had been involved), while looking at the great 2300 Opal Exhibition in the Western regions of the Australian Empire. Turned out there wasn't just opals in that part of the world - there was uranium. In hindsight - 

"I thought you didn't seem that surprised to see her alive!"

"Okay," said the Doctor, throwing up his hands. "In my defence, even if I hadn't known she was alive, I would have assumed she was alive. She's Missy, she's the Mistress, she's the Master-"

"Kinky," said Clara, trying to use bluster to ignore the memories of the Doctor and Mistress viciously making out in the TARDIS. It didn't work. Missy, she knew all-too-well by now, was a biter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, so was the Doctor. 

"I just sort of assumed, if I don't burn the corpse, and as I later realised, dispose of the ashes myself-"

"So many questions-"

"I thought it was kind of self-explanatory, she's probably out there. You know how you can always buy a kebab at 3am in any capital city?"

"Except Milton Keynes."

"Yes, except Milton Keynes, well. Schroedinger's kebab van. You might not know where it is, but you know it's out there-"

"And probably going to make you sick."

The Doctor looked at his feet. "But sometimes you just really need a kebab."

The metaphor had taken a turn. He continued, "despite the ensuing regret, usually the next morning."

Clara slowly turned to look at the roster again. She turned back to the Doctor, her half-smile fading. "That's not what I think it is, is it?"

"Disneyland?" the Doctor asked. "And to answer your next question, I promise she won't be around, when you're around."

"You have a sex roster. This is, the infamous sex roster."

"It-"

"There is literally no way to defend a sex roster, Doctor, don't even try. And yes, Disneyland. Please."

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

> **iv. CONTACT WITH ALLIES [of either party] - Neither the DOCTOR nor the MISTRESS shall make any wilful contact with any past, future or present allies of either party, neither the DOCTOR nor the MISTRESS shall interfere with third parties who shall or may come into contact (meaningful or ephemeral) with past, future or present allies of the DOCTOR or the MISTRESS**
> 
>  

* * *

 

 

PART TWO: NEGOTIATION

 

"Would you shag Hitler?" Clara asked.

To her credit, Teresa, a History teacher who was rapidly moving into the best friend camp, simply raised an eyebrow and said,

"Who's paying?"

"You'd be freely - mostly freely - choosing to. Like, you're not coerced."

"Why do I want to have sex with Hitler in the first place? What are you going on about?"

Clara started fiddling with her teaspoon. "Say," she said slowly. "Everyone in the world died. Like, everyone. No, and vanished, not a trace left behind." She tucked her hair behind her ear, shifted on the couch.

"Except Hitler," finished Teresa. "This is morbid. Do I know it's Hitler?"

"Yes, very much so. So they're all dead and you think you're all alone in the univ - you think you're all alone on Earth and then there is Hitler, right down to the swastika and evilness. Gloating about the swastika and the evilness."

"I hate these questions. It's like that one with the train and the two tracks and one's got five deaf-mute-blind kids on it and the other's got one blind-deaf-mute adult and-"

"Shut up," said Clara. "Sorry. I just-"

"I'm all alone in the universe and for whatever reason, somehow Hitler has come back from the dead and survived this mass extinction of humans and - is this to repopulate the planet, is this why I want to have sex with him?"

"No. It's just-"

"You didn't have a sex dream about Hitler?" Teresa asked.

"What? No!"

"Just checking."

"No, it's a friend."

"A friend wants to shag Hitler?"

"No!" Clara stuttered. "Well, look, statistically, there probably is someone out there we know who does. It's my friend's book. They're um, writing it. Gave me the first draft. It's such a weird concept but like - it's weirdly good?"

"So you want to shag Hitler now?"

"No, it's just. The problem - of the book is. You're the last of humanity. And Hitler pops up a few times. And it's just, after a time you realise without Hitler you are the last of the - the last of humanity, in a vast universe-"

"I've been off men, too, for a bit, swinging more to the pink side of the flag than the purple or the blue," said Teresa. 

Clara filed that bit of information away for another time, and forged on.

"So he's like, the last connection you have with any form of human culture, language and history, anything from earth, like no one else knows what zebras are."

"Did Hitler know what zebras were? Wait, they ate the animals at the Berlin Zoo during the war. Probably."

" _Anyway_. Would you have sex with Hitler?"

"So it's not to repopulate, and I am in full knowledge of who Hitler is, that is, I know he's Hitler." Teresa sipped her juice. "I think," she said, putting on her teacher voice, "that we should rephrase the question."

Clara made a 'go on' gesture, put her mug on the coffee table with a thunk.

"How lonely and low would one have to be brought before they considered banging a genocidal maniac? Five hundred words, your choice of response -creative, argumentative or exploratory."

"Huh," said Clara. She crossed her legs, placed her hands on her knees. "I guess I didn't want to think of it that way."

"Would you?"

"Hm?"

"Would you fuck Hitler?"

"I've been low," said Clara thoughtfully, Danny at the back of her mind. "Doubt I've been that low."

"Sorry," said Teresa, and patted Clara's hand. 

Clara smiled across at her. "Young Stalin on the other hand."

"Oh yeah. I would."

 

* * *

 

Clara could almost get used to Missy hanging about the TARDIS and occasionally tagging along on outings. She was thankful for Missy's presence for the first time in living memory when the Time Lady saved them all from a rampaging Heliogryph in the maze at Versailles. Missy was absent - from Clara's life at least - for a good few months after that.

 

She couldn't get used to the loud sex, or Missy always leaving her dirty dishes in the sink - which the Doctor had _started doing_ , even when the Time Lady wasn't in the TARDIS or her flat. Missy hummed constantly, the Doctor would glare, and that was something she could get used to. But once in a while, especially if it had been in his terms, a 'good day,' he'd hum back. Waltzes, or a polka. That was something she'd never get used to in a million years. 

Sometimes Missy and the Doctor chose to speak in Gallifreyan while she was in the room, which would never become normal. The language was creepy. Some parts sounded so banal and guttural, and then Missy would say something incredibly sibilant and biting that made the walls of the TARDIS vibrate. The Doctor would reply in kind and the walls would stop but the air would hum after he'd finished talking. 

The Doctor had explained one day when they'd visited the sapphire-crusted beaches of Piaoxanglun, watching dolphin-like creatures frolic in the lilac waves. Missy was skipping diamonds down by the shore. 

"There are 97 main dialects of Gallifreyan," he said. "Related to location, class, age, family. The most tenses in one of those is 67 - twenty past, nineteen present, twenty-eight future, but that was usually used only by engineers and scientists. The least is seven past, two present and five future, spoken by children at the Academy. And like in Chinese, the spoken languages are completely divorced from our written languages. Of which there are twelve main forms."

Clara squinted at him. "Why are you-"

"When we talk in Gallifreyan 33 you get this look on your face like I'm slowly crushing your foot. And you're an English teacher, I figure you know, you like languages."

"I do, it's interesting, it's just. Doctor, why doesn't the TARDIS translate it for me?"

"TARDIS doesn't translate Gallifreyan without implicit consent from all the people who're speaking it. And it's not - we're not talking about you, if that's what you're worried about. You try talking about dimension-hopping in the fifth dimension in English, or French or Bhutanese. You just sound stupid. Like, dimension-hopping."

"It's a nice language. Well, the version you two speak. Sounds like Russian and Maori smashed together, with a bit of Taylor Swift."

"Taylor Swift?" The Doctor sounded affronted, but instead of looking at Clara, stared at Missy's back.

"Well, that's more Missy. Like the atmosphere just feels a bit - " Clara said, while the Doctor just looked confused. "Gallifreyan 33, ey? Did you always speak that?"

"I grew up speaking the Lungbarrow variation off the 40th dialect," said the Doctor. Missy turned around, the Doctor waved at her, pointed at his wrist. "We're gonna miss the sunrise on top of the hill if we don't leave in a couple of minutes. You learn the rest you need at the Academy, for your chosen careers, or you pick them up. Missy's family at Oakdown-"

"Blessed syntaxes of Rassilon?" Missy called, approaching them with a smile. "Twelve. Didn't have a word for 'stupid,' when we were kids, so we grew up creative. Or a word for legs."

"You had a word for legs," said the Doctor, standing and helping Clara to her feet. "Don't be ridiculous."

"There was a word for 'the connection that leads to the knee' and a separate one for the 'connection between knee and foot joint.'"

"We all had a word for leg. It's leg!"

"No, it was," Missy said one thing in Gallifreyan that would have made half the linguists on Earth weep, swore in English, then another word in Gallifreyan that would have made the rest of the linguists collapse. "Shin and thigh, but no," she pointed at her own shin-and-thigh, "leg."

"This is the reason no one liked the plains people. No word for leg."

"If I remember correctly, Doctor, your people had eighty-five words for _daisy_."

"What's wrong with that? Daisies are nice."

"Which hill are we watching the sun from?" Clara asked, feeling more like a ninth wheel than a third. The Doctor pointed, and they began to head off in a line. 

"I mean, you just need one. Daisy," said Missy. "Yellow daisy, if you need variety. Or white. The Daisiest-"

The Doctor began rattling off words that Clara assumed, meant daisy in Gallifreyan 40, whatever that was. 

 

The hill was steep, but at least the sunrise was nice.

 

* * *

 

"Wait, why are all the humans gone?" Teresa asked at the door. "Thanks for having me, by the way. You can come over to mine next week if you'd like?"

"My pleasure, and I'd like that," said Clara. "What do you mean?"

"All the people are dead - do I know why they died? Vanished, I mean?"

"Um," said Clara.

"Hitler didn't kill them all did they?"

"What if," Clara said, crossing her arms. "It's kind of heavily implied in the book, and then my friend said, they're going to put it in outright at the end of Chapter 10 - what if it was all your fault?"

"Like I'd killed them? Shit."

"To be fair, humanity did something like, really bad."

"I'd have to inform Hitler first," Teresa joked. "See if he was still up for the horizontal goose-step."

"Oh, he knows."

"Honestly, in that case. I feel like we'd be made for each other."

 

* * *

 

 

Clara probably should have knocked, but they'd never really covered the mechanics of politeness - the TARDIS was the Doctor's home, of course, but he'd parked it inside _her_ home, so surely he should have knocked.

Somehow. A few times. Through space and time.  

Anyhoodle, that was irrelevant now she was inside and without even registering the scene before her, there was a distinct air of intimacy that set her heart thumping, her palms sweating, her stomach churning - the conversation in that strange, strange language had died away, leaving the room echoing and tense -

"Clara," said Missy into the ringing silence, cheerfully with a hint of smugness. Clara thought the term 'smug' so often in conjunction with Missy that she barely recognised it as a word anymore. Smug was a state of being for the Time Lady. 

Missy peered down at Clara from where she was sitting in the Doctor's armchair on the upper level of the console room, a pair of reading glasses on her nose. The Doctor rolled out from under the TARDIS console on an old skateboard, his jacket and cardigan gone, shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows. That was relatively normal. Clara's eyes went back to Missy, who'd shed her jacket, unbuttoned the top collar of her shirt and was barefoot, chewing on a pencil. With her mouth, that is, not her toes. 

"Um. Sorry, am I interrupting anything?" 

"You could have knocked," said the Time Lady, going back to her book.

"Uh," said Clara. "I was just um, rimm-ruminating on that, actually."

"I must have disabled the known-regions blocker." said the Doctor, standing and wiping his hands on a rag. "I thought we'd landed on an asteroid. Scanner looked like an asteroid."

"I _said_ it looked like wallpaper."

"You need new wallpaper, Clara," said the Doctor. 

"No I don't. This is definitely, in my living room. The TARDIS. This is happening, in my house. You're doing sex things, in the TARDIS, which is in my house-"

"Is this what sex looks like to humans? I thought you didn't include books and motor oil." the Doctor looked at Missy. "You didn't tell her about the time wit-"

"I think it's a problem with the Universal Positioning System," Missy said, over the Doctor's confusion. "Since you tried tracking Gallifrey through my mind - without my express consent, can I add - it's been all left leaning and kablooey. It's why we landed on Yugotovus when you wanted to go to Plugotovees. And that charcoal chicken shop in Parramatta in 1997 when we wanted Sicilian pizza in the 1890s."

"Doctor, can I talk to you? Privately?"

Missy made an 'ugh' noise and stood. She tucked the book under her arm and sauntered down the stairs, brushing past the Doctor as she left. Clara pretended not to notice how he leant into her. The Doctor pretended not to notice Clara pretending not to notice and fiddled idly with some control on the console, waited for Clara to speak. She decided to avoid the maniacal elephant that had just left the room.

"You're looking for Gallifrey? I thought she said she knew where it was."

"I lied!" came the shout.

"She, ah, she lied. We're fairly certain as to the location of Gallifrey within another dimension, but-"

"You don't know where the other dimension is? I thought they were right next to this universe?"

The Doctor made a flip-floppy hand gesture. "Here's where I used to say wibbly-wobbly, spacey-wacey, but there's billions upon billions of alternative dimensions, but they are all simultaneously right beside our own, separated by less than the thickness of a piece of rice paper - and completely inaccessible. Missy would happily go crashing through all those dimensions but that would make the universe fall down around our ears and there'd be no Gallifrey for anyone."

"Or universe."

"Which is inconvenient." The Doctor looked down at the console, flicked two switches, began rolling his sleeves down. "I'm dropping her off now, then we can go somewhere nice. Do you have anywhere in mind?"

"Historical?" Clara floated. "Somewhere history like?"

"Well you and Jane Austen got on well," said the Doctor. Clara smiled at the memory. "Greek islands. 600 BCE. Good wine. Good company."

Missy disembarked in late-90s Britain, which the Doctor felt was odd - "We've both had a big aversion to the 1990s," the Doctor explained. "Never figured it out." - and took Clara, and they ended up on the island of Lesbos. There was good wine. There was good company. The Doctor got a lot of reading done. Clara most decidedly did not. 

 

* * *

 

Clara walked through the halls of the Louvre, thoroughly pleased that the Doctor's promise that she'd be able to get a selfie with the Mona Lisa hadn't been broken.

"Doctor, when you said we could go meet up with Leo D, did you mean DaVinci or DiCap-"

"Don't come in!" came a voice from the next room, and Clara's blood ran cold.

"Is that you, Missy?" she asked.

"Would you prefer it if it wasn't, dear?"

"….Is the Doctor okay?"

"He's fine, he's fine. He's just."

Clara swallowed down some bile, closed her eyes.

"Occupied, right now. Would you mind waiting back round in the foyer, there's a pet."

Numbly, Clara turned on her heel and headed back the way she'd came. She was going to take herself to the damn miniatures gallery and souvenir one. She'd _earned_ it.

 

* * *

 

 

"I mean, it's just shallow sex. She's evil, he just needs it psychologically," Clara said quickly, breathing out. She curled her hands into fists in her skirt. "I mean, she needs it psychologically too. Physiologically? It's a connection with their homeland. Or something."

Teresa, bless her soul and acting skills, managed to nod understandingly, despite the confusion fighting to take hold of her face.

"It's reclaiming their identities and recalling a time before the war, but do they have to be so damn loud?" 

"What's - this book even called?"

Clara turned to her friend, eyes wide. "Um. It's still a draft copy. They haven't titled it yet."

"Sounds like it should be called the Grand Sci-Fi Fuckathon of Hitler and Stalin," Teresa deadpanned, and Clara was so shocked she snorted. "Clara, I'm here for you if you need a friend, but if the book….makes you so uncomfortable, maybe you should tell your friend you don't want to. Read it. Anymore."

Clara breathed in and out deeply. "It's just sex. I mean, it's just a book."

"I'm gonna make us another cup of tea," Teresa said. "I'll just give you a minute to calm down."

The door closed quietly behind her. Clara grabbed an IKEA cushion off Teresa's IKEA couch, held it to her face and screamed into the ergonomically-designed IKEA stuffing.

Sex. It was just sex. Mechanical sex which everyone - well the majority of the population, Clara's Political Correctness and Inclusivity Barometer reminded her - sort of needed and had to have. Just meaningless sex.

"Clara, I can hear you muttering 'just meaningless sex' from in here," Teresa called. 

"Meaningless, mechanical, shallow sex. Kissing wasn't even stipulated in the contract. They don't _talk_ , they just _shag_ , and then look at books and write equations. While yammering about in Gallifreyan 33."

"What contract?" called Teresa. "What the hell kind of story is this?"

 

* * *

 

Afterwards, the Doctor lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. "Clara said you mentioned your daughter," he said. 

Missy rolled onto her side so he couldn't see her face.

"Well, that's a mature reaction," the Doctor said. "I was just saying - so you know, that I know."

"I can't believe Clara told you. Breaking the sacred bonds of womanhood." 

The Doctor moved onto his side, stared at Missy's back, black strands of her hair curling along her pale neck. He reached out, traced a finger down her spine, between her shoulderblades. Missy shifted. He sighed, took his hand away.  

"It's okay," said Missy, and hummed when he ran his fingers along the back of her neck, along her hairline, then up into her hair. "I was caught up, I was thinking. I don't know what I was thinking. Actually, I do - I needed Clara to trust me. I meant to only mention you, but she slipped out."

"I'm glad you remember her. I met - I made, a girl immortal. Human memory span, though, so she had to keep diaries, massive records of all the centuries she'd lived and things she'd done."

"Hm."

"Her children - all died of the Plague. But she didn't actually remember it, she had to keep the entry in the diary to remind herself not to do it again. Children, I mean."

"They are as mayflies," Missy turned onto her stomach, propped her head on her arms, smiled wanly at the Doctor. "I don't know how you can stand it."

"You like Clara."

"She reminds me, of a young us." Missy rested her forehead against her arms. "I don't remember her name."

"It's Clara."

"No - _hers_."

"Oh. Missy. Kos-"

"No. You do? I'm touched. Don't tell me."

"It'll come back to you. It takes time."

Missy looked over at the Doctor, narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Missy put her hand out, pressed her thumb to the corner of his mouth. 

"Yes," he said. 

"You forgot too. How can we forget?"

"I forgot. You have to forget. And I remembered. They come back to you."

 

* * *

 

 

"To answer the question not related to contraception, because we don't need to worry about that - mitosis - Missy and I were never married." The Doctor looked at his hands. "In any version of ourselves. I quite liked her first wife. Their daughter. Lovely family. Everyone thought - well then, she was the Master, I suppose - we were going at it, because we were odd for Time Lord society."

"Were you?"

The Doctor shook his head. "We were odd, we weren't deviants."

"I do imagine that Time Lords were quite repressed. Sexually."

"It's not so much sexual repression as disinterest. You know how sea turtles have like a hundred eggs, because only a few will make it to adulthood? It's exactly like that, but we don't lay hundreds of eggs. It's nothing like sea turtles."

Clara blinked, because the Doctor was such a sea turtle. "I thought it was more like Tolkien's elves," she said. "I mean, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it," this was a lie, "but I assumed." 

 "Anyway. We weren't - engaging,not at that point. It's kind of always been - on again, off again."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Missy to you is a murderer and psychopath. Missy to Martha, is a murderer and conqueror and psychopath. Missy - is a murderer, and conqueror, and off the wall insane, bananas. She is also my childhood friend, the last link back a culture I once ran from and the only other Gallifreyan in existence."

"I know all that." Clara said. "We had coffee with Martha last week. Missy stood outside the entire time and stared daggers at us until UNIT showed up."

"But. If we didn't have this drive. She would still be around. Do you understand that?" said the Doctor. "Hell, we probably would have found Gallifrey by now, as we wouldn't be getting distracted so often. It's not even this bad with River, but that could have been something to do with my Eleventh Body."

"You can't be sure that you'd have found G - you can't tell me you and your best…enemy have been hanging about before now."

"I do. I was exiled to Earth, back when the rest of our species was still around. She'd pop in to visit. He. They'd pop into visit. I appreciated it. Things certainly have altered, but this isn't a complete change."

"Why did you give her that brooch?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"It scares me, that brooch. I can't imagine knowing someone for 2000 years," said Clara. "Lot of baggage there."

"I gave her the badge. I won't tell you why. That's Missy's prerogative. She wouldn't tell you anything about my children or my family even if you begged. Even to hurt you."

"That's not in the contract."

"It doesn't need to be. I may not trust her with anything else, and I wouldn't trust her much further than I can throw her-"

"Throw her down, you mean-"

"Stop it. But I do trust her with that."

 

* * *

 

 

 

> **v. THE TARDIS - The MISTRESS is barred from entering, touching the interior or exterior controls of the TARDIS, piloting the TARDIS, using the communication elements of the TARDIS or entering the libraries, closet, personal living areas, squash courts, or weapons areas of the TARDIS without the explicit verbal and [Untranslatable Gallifreyan Concept] permission of the DOCTOR.**
> 
>  

* * *

 

PART ZERO POINT THREE: NEITHER THERE NOR HERE

 

Clara had Teresa round for drinks before the staff Christmas Party, and then more drinks after. 

"I have to pee, just make yourself comfortable," said Clara, unlocking the door. "You know where the vodka is."

As she opened the door, she internally beat herself around the head. Don't be weird, Oswald. She headed down to the bathroom, leaving Teresa to make her own way across to the living area. Clara emerged a few minutes later, having smoothed her hair and redone her lipstick, to hear voices. Heart sinking, she moved down the hallway to find a bemused looking Teresa leaning on the doorframe, talking to Missy about - christmas films?

The Doctor poked his head out of the kitchen. Clara smacked him on the shoulder.

"What?" he said.

"What?" she replied. "What? You doing here?"

"We actually came around to replace your kitchenaid but then Home Alone 2 was on and Missy's never seen it."

There were so many things to unpack. "I….got a new kitchenaid myself. It's been months since Missy took it originally. And the TARDIS library must have Home Alone 2. And why would Missy want to -" Clara recalled walking in on Missy watching Peppa Pig and laughing herself sick. For some reason that had been more unsettling than the time she walked in on the Doctor and Missy on the ladder in the libra - anyway. "The DVD collection must have Home Alone 2."

"My Ninth Body had this strange vendetta against Macalauy Culkin and I've never gotten around to replacing it." the Doctor went back into the kitchen, where he'd been boiling the kettle. He added two more teabags to the teapot and filled it with water. "Who's your friend?"

"Who? Teresa? Just a friend? She's just a friend, yeah. From work. Work friend."

"Help me with these cups. Do you have any biscuits? Is your _friend_ hungry?"

"Clara!" said Teresa, when the Doctor and Clara entered. "…Missy was just telling me she knows you from your work at UNIT."

"You told her you work at UNIT too," said the Doctor.

"This is the Doctor," said Clara, proffering a cup of tea at Teresa. "He also works. At UNIT."

"I'm on the payroll," The Doctor said. "So Teresa. Tell me about your prospects."

"You don't need to do that," said Clara. "I mean, these two were just leaving, weren't you two?"

Missy shrugged. "We don't have to be anywhere."

"No - intergalactic emergencies? You found what you're looking for?" 

"We're working on that as we speak," said Missy, taking a sip of tea. 

"We actually are," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS is working on some calculations. Now, Teresa, you're a teacher too, but what do you do for fun? Do you have any hobbies? Clara needs a hobby. Do you knit?"

"I do, actually!"

 

It was actually worse than meeting her actual family - hell, it was nearly as bad as Home Alone Five, especially when Clara and Teresa caught up the following week and Teresa called Missy _charming_.

 

* * *

 

 

> **APPENDIX B: Find attached the ~~Sex Roster of Rassilon _seriously Missy we are not calling it that_ the Sex Roster _no not that either_~~ the Schedule as referenced in clause i. **
> 
>  

* * *

 

PART THREE: ACCEPTANCE

 

Clara, bless her, assumed that her apartment was out-of-bounds for Doctor-Mistress shenanigans. She assumed incorrectly.

The Doctor still had lipstick on his face when Clara chuffed him into the kitchen, leaving Missy sprawled on the couch looking thoroughly debauched.

"I moved out of my sharehouse when I was 20 because that's the _exact_ thing I didn't like walking in on," she hissed. "You have a TARDIS. It has literally, infinite rooms. What is wrong, with making out - hell, shagging, I've accepted that's going to be a thing by now, I really have - in one of those infinite rooms, with your psychotic school buddy, as opposed to my apartment?"

"We," said the Doctor slowly. "Got. Distracted?"

"Pay rent, or do that somewhere else. I could have been bringing someone over!"

"Were you planning on bringing someone over?"

"Well I don't anymore, because I never know if a crazy Time Lady is going to be taking bits out of my dishwasher to build a bloody - Gallifreyan scanner thing or whatever your plan is this week for finding your stupid planet."

"I didn't realise," said the Doctor. "Is she nice?"

"What?"

"The girl you want to bring over, is she nice?"

"How do you know I want to bring a girl over?" 

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and came up with a handkerchief. He swiped at the corner of his mouth, getting the majority of lipstick. There was still some under his ear. "When we were visiting Charles II and Missy started teaching him how to rap, you were more interested in texting on your phone. You wouldn't ignore the King of England spitting sick beats just for any old person."

Missy wandered into the kitchen, retrieved her jacket and brooch. 

"You. Don't say a word," said the Doctor. Missy swapped to Gallifreyan and uttered something that sounded vaguely ominous on her way back out. "And to you too."

Clara waited until the door had slammed before she continued. 

"I haven't told my family," she said quietly. 

"About what?"

"That I like - both. Men and women."

"And? Oh. Oh, right. That's a thing, here." the Doctor looked awkwardly at the sink. "Earth is strange. You get hung up on the oddest things. If it helps, Teresa reminds me of my daughter's wife."

"You get hung up on hugging!" Clara filed that last phrase away for thinking over later. "I mean, most of the time. You've been better lately."

"Not in regards to gender," said the Doctor. "Well, if - don't you put a sock on the door, or something, isn't that the code?"

Clara covered her face. "Oh, we are not having this conversation. This is not happening. Just please, try and text me if Missy is gonna be here, okay?"

"Understood, boss. Would you like to hug now?"

"Yes." Clara took a deep breath, tried to sound less angry. "Please."

The Doctor rested his chin on top of her head, patted her on the back.

"You're good at this sort of thing. I always forget." Clara mumbled into his jumper, trying to ignore how it smelt of Missy's perfume and smoke. "How did you know it's Teresa?"

The Doctor sighed, rested his hand on the back of her head and smoothing her hair down. "Dad skills," he said. "It's like riding a bike."

 

* * *

 

 

The Doctor missed a rostered appointment when the TARDIS was hijacked by aliens that took the form of sleep-inducing miasma. It was an accidental hijack, though, and so once he'd vacuumed them up whilst wearing a World War I gas mask and opened the dustbuster on their planet to release them, he quickly took himself to a street in Weimar Germany. He was sure he brushed past his Eleventh body on the pavement, but ignored that in favour of finding the coffeehouse. Missy was nearly at the end of her book - which she'd stolen from the TARDIS - and barely noticed him sitting down.

"I'm sorry I'm late. Gerelumexi," he said. Missy didn't look up from the book. 

"I need to replace the backup emergency ventilation system. You can come to the markets on e'Laghunah with me, if you want. I'm going to have to jury-rig something out of several systems, because I'm nearly out of TARDIS spare parts. I could use a hand." He waited. "Missy?"

"Hang on." Missy held up one exquisitely manicured nail. "There's just a bit here on organic psychic wave scanners I think we should look into. I read this when I was in the Academy, but I'd forgotten the authors names. Completely organic tracking device. No metal - no alloys, no base metals. None."

"Why would we need a vegan metal-free psy-wave scanner?"

Missy turned the corner of the page down and shut the book, rested her elbows on the table and finally looked across at him. "I designed a shield when I was in prison, for the Time Morons. Impressive one. Planet-wide. It had to be. Stopped any potential hostiles from even tracing the planet, but by the time we got it running, the Daleks were already on-world. If we can't beat it with high-tech or force, which were the two things the Daleks adored using in my brief, I think low-tech might be the way to go. We're going to need a lot of citrus fruits. And terracotta pots from Bronze Age Baghdad. Do you know anyone who can access Yunyipple brains?" The Doctor stared at her, the skin on the back of his neck prickling. "Doctor?"

" _I'm sorry, I'm late_ ," said the Doctor. "Have you eaten?"

"I - " Missy looked at the clock, looked down at the book, looked back at him wide-eyed. "I'm not hungry."

The Doctor blinked. "Neither am I," he said slowly. 

"Like, I want food." Missy picked up a menu. "I'm not - hungry. You catch my drift."

"I - I do. Is this a problem?" the Doctor asked. "Like you said in Korea. You've always been more. Forward."

Missy summoned the waiter, ordered in flawless German for both of them, swapped back to Gallifreyan. "We're spending a lot more time with each other in general. It could be our bodies think the need to breed clause has been. Filled."

"You're not. Please tell me, you're. Not."

" _No_." Missy glared.

"Are you sure?"

"Do me the courtesy of believing me on this Doctor. I've been living in this body for a while now. I would _know_."

"So, what, we're past the honeymoon and into the nesting stage? Our hormones now think we're raising kids? I should go talk to Martha about this."

"You most certainly should not. Should I get extra cream for the strudel?"

"Yes." The Doctor rubbed his mouth. "Not raising. Kids have moved out. Enjoying retirement."

Missy nodded, crossed her arms. "Contract still hasn't been fulfilled. We haven't found Gallifrey."

"Not yet. You look annoyed."

"I paid for the hotel room already," she said. "I mean, I stole the money but it was a nice one, too."

"We can still use it," said the Doctor. "I'm okay with that. Like, I want to. It's kind of nice, not being compelled. Where did you take the money from?"

"I found this book of ethics in the study Clara uses. Are you morally obligated to steal Hitler's wallet, if the opportunity should avail itself. It did. I availed myself."

The strudel arrived. The Doctor asked for extra cream. As the waiter went to fetch it, both the Doctor and Missy noted the yarmulke on his head. 

"Well," said Missy. "That puts a dampener on things. Remind me to tip him, it's the least Hitler can do for the poor bastard."

"This country is a tragedy," the Doctor muttered. "Can you not?"

"You didn't say that last time we were here."

"I was distracted."

"History is a giant tragedy, Doctor." Missy said. "Isn't your thing finding the small patches of happiness in the tragic tales of time?"

"What's your thing?"

Missy smiled, and it was beautiful and terrifying. "Let's not go down that conversational road again. Sugar?"

 

* * *

 

 

Clara walked into the TARDIS - parked in the hallway outside her flat now, as per agreement - and was shocked and nervous of the silence inside the time machine. She looked around the console room, expecting the worst (which was either nudity, or evisceration, and at least she'd probably be able to look the 13th Doctor in the eye) and not expecting to see the Doctor and Missy sharing the armchair, the Mistress sitting on his lap. The Doctor was asleep, his head leaning against Missy's shoulder while the Time Lady scrawled on a yellow legal pad. She was mumbling something under her breath - as Clara walked through the console room, she felt as though she'd suddenly been zapped with a burst of static electricity. 

"Uh, hi," said Clara. 

Missy stopped talking - the electric feeling stopped - looked up, gave Clara a nod. "Just let me finish this, and we'll be off."

"You can't fly the TARDIS. The Doctor said. He gave you that thing."

No answer. Missy continued scribbling, counted something on her fingers. "Seven microcosms," she muttered. The Doctor stirred.

"What year did Ca'Mig'Ara vanish?" she said. 

WIthout opening his eyes, the Doctor said, "You blew it up in the 34th year of the Third Human Empire. June-ish. I'm just glad Peri and I managed to evacuate it in time."

"Eight, microcosms," Missy wrote. "Imploded it. Except for the-"

"We're not using the planets you've previously destroyed to power the interdimensional endoscope." The Doctor still appeared to be asleep. 

"It's a theory Doctor, I'm not putting it into practise." Missy winked theatrically at Clara, gave her a thumbs up.

"We're not using them," the Doctor repeated, pressing his face against Missy's upper arm. 

"Should I just - come back?" Clara said finally. "I mean, if you're doing actual work on this Gallifrey thing. As per your contract. And you're acting all coupley. It's weird."

"We're not acting coupley," snapped Missy. "Now, Clara, dear. Where would you like Daddy and Mummy to take you on this outing?"

 

* * *

 

 

For whatever reason, the Doctor took Missy to the Christmas celebrations at Coal Hill. Six classrooms bedecked with all the tinsel and Christmas artwork the kids could make and put up; gingerbread houses and starting at 7.15 precisely, a holiday-themed concert with a guest appearance by the maths teacher, Mr. Mosedly, as Santa Claus. 

"It's far a cry from - " Clara was manning the tickets desk, a pound per ticket, all funds towards some natural disaster that had happened a few weeks previously abroad. She gestured out the window at the foggy London sky. "It's a far cry from that."

"Trying to make her see their humanity," The Doctor replied. He handed Clara two pounds, put three more in the donation jar, plus a button and a Lira from the foundation years of the Republic of Turkey. "I mean, it's never worked before, but I live in…vague hope. We're going to visit Queen Victoria for Christmas dinner later, you can come if you want."

"I'd like that."

"Are you selling chestnuts anywhere here?"

Clara watched Missy talking to one of the younger students, a new girl whose family had moved from Iran. Darya, she was pretty certain her name was. The Doctor eyed off Clara meaningfully, and the pair of them moved across to where the Time Lady was examining one of Darya's artworks, a painted picture of Christmas lights.

"My family doesn't celebrate Christmas," the girl was saying. "But I think it all looks so pretty."

"My family doesn't either," Missy said, and the Doctor shook his head. "Darya. That's a nice name."

"So's Missy. Is it short for something?" 

Clara's eyes widened.

"Oh, that's a story and a half," said Missy."We'd be here till next Christmas. What does Darya mean?"

"Ocean, in Persian. But my friends call me - actually, my friends still call me Darya." said the girl. "Do you want to see my gingerbread house?"

Missy's eyes widened. Beside Clara, the Doctor started, as if he'd been about to lean forward, then stopped himself. All three of them waited, though Clara wasn't exactly sure why they were all so tense over a gingerbread house. Missy had stopped breathing, but she tended to do that around Clara on the TARDIS to freak her out. After ten excruciating seconds, the Doctor cleared his throat. 

"Missy." he said, and grabbed her forearm. Missy's hand came up to cover his own. It was like someone had taken her off pause.

Smoothly, Missy said, "Ocean, that's pretty. Do I want to see your gingerbread house. What kind of a question is that-"

"Missy-" Clara began.

"It's a definite yes," said the Time Lady. "I will be just one second, let me talk to the Doctor." Darya nodded gravely - gingerbread houses were serious business - and went into the classroom where they were kept.

"Missy," said the Doctor. Missy turned to face the other Time Lord, a strange expression on her creepy face. 

"Ocean," said Missy, her gaze boring into his. The Doctor nodded. 

"You're okay?" The Doctor said. "We can leave if you want."

Clara watched this entire conversation with her eyebrows raised, feeling once again relegated to the edge of whatever the Doctor and Missy had. 

"I'm okay," Missy took a deep breath, and headed into the classroom.

"Doctor," said Clara. "Can you stop Missy from talking to the kids. I mean, you're welcome here as long as they are safe. As long as everything-"

"Ocean." the Doctor said. "We have a treaty. We haven't found Gallifrey yet. Everything's fine."

"Really?"

"Actually. Everything's pretty good right now, that I'm thinking about it."

Clara sighed, folded her arms, looked over at Missy smiling and stealing excess M&Ms off Darya's windowsills.

"And I've got a duty of care. I haven't forgotten."

"What's she so happy about?"

The Doctor shrugged. "She'd forgotten something. It's come back to her."

 

* * *

 

 

After the concert, Teresa approached Clara.

"Your UNIT friends are here. They really are such a cute couple," she said, handing Clara a candy cane. "And Missy is so funny."

"Cute couple?"

"Oh, they're holding hands and chatting with the Pahlavi family. I love old couples who still, you know, act like couples. The Pahlavis, over there. Darya's mum and dad. She's in my history class. I didn't know they had kids, too."

"They don't have kids," said Clara. "Not together."

"They said they had kids of their own. Like, from previous marriages. Are they married? You met their kids?"

 "Um. No. There was a. Something happened." Clara locked the cash box, handed it to the Vice-Principal. "They both had kids, before."

"Before?"

"There was - " Clara looked over at the Doctor and Missy, who were, yes, holding hands and looking every inch a normal middle-aged (if she was generous to the Doctor) couple. "There was an-"

"It's okay, Clara. You don't have to tell me. It's their business. Now, there's mistletoe outside. Can I awkwardly lead you out there and inadvertently stand you under it, or do I have to beg?"

"You're smooth. You think you're not. But you're so smooth."

 

* * *

 

 

Clara followed them onto the TARDIS, ignoring the Doctor's odd look, just as she ignored Missy still clutching at his jacket.

"Can I help you?" he asked, he and Missy making their way around the console as he took them into space. "Missy, go sit down. It's okay. Clara, we might have to postpone the Queen Victoria trip. She never liked me anyway."

In the sudden silence that followed, Missy leaned up and kissed the Doctor gently on the cheek. He turned to face her, pressed their foreheads together. For the first time in months - Clara felt that rising revulsion. That confusion. When had that gone away?

"Doctor," she began, stopped when she realised the Doctor was muttering something in Gallifreyan and Missy was nodding. She waited.

Missy said the Gallifreyan word - well one of the ones Clara vaguely recognised the sound of - for yes, ran her hand down the Doctor's face, cupped his cheek. 

"I'm going to bed," she said finally, following it up with something in Gallifreyan. She gestured at Clara. The Doctor nodded, replied in kind.

 Clara was - she was scared, she realised, feeling sweat on her palms. Missy nodded at Clara, moved out of the room, unpinning her hair as she went. What was going on?

The Doctor moved suddenly, yanking one of the levers so the TARDIS jerked, and they were off. 

"…What's going on?" she asked. "Is everything-"

"Everything's alright," the Doctor replied. "Would you like to, go anywhere in particular?"

"Aren't you going to bed? Missy's….there."

"She's tired, I'm not. Did I ever end up taking you to the Hindschler Space Station? It's a wonderful museum, interactive, of Human culture across the centuries, from apes to galactic Empire. And well," the Doctor gestured. "Back again. Not you. Those kids who murdered O Little Town of Bethlehem. Why was there a lobster?"

"No?"

"And they nicked a bit of the Braxiatel collection when it was up for grabs. Some of that stuff's mine."

"Is - Doctor, what's happening with Missy?"

"It's about her daughter."

"Oh, so you can't tell me. No, no - it's fine, it actually is."

"Actually," the Doctor pointed to the door Missy had gone out of. "That's what we were talking about, just now." He turned so he was leaning against the console. Clara stepped up onto the platform, followed suit. 

"I - Missy. Forgot her daughter's name."

"She forgot her name? That's - "

The Doctor clicked his tongue. "It's sad."

"Doctor, that's awful. How can you forget your child's name?"

"Time. Space. Madness. She hasn't remembered for the last few centuries, not since the war. You. You can't - when you're that far away from them, you can't. You can't think of them, or it breaks you, Clara." He breathed out. "And you can know every fact about them, inside and out, but that memory has to go in a box, and that box has to go in the back of the wardrobe and, and."

"And otherwise, it hurts." Clara blinked over at the Doctor. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I was wondering when the eyes were going to come out. Put those away."

"Did Missy remember?"

"Technically, her daughter's name meant 'silver-line-of-dawn-over-the-ocean,'" The Doctor rattled off a string of light Gallifreyan syllables. "Of the House of Oakdown. Etcetera. In her wife's dialect." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "She's been trying to remember it for a while."

"Your kids names are nicer," Clara said finally, and the Doctor laughed, his eyes suddenly damp. "Well, I don't remember them, but I remember they sounded nice." 

"I want to thank you," he said. "I know. It's not been easy. It's been awful for you, sometimes. I."

"Your intergalactic on-again-off-again psychotic ex just remembered her daughter's name for the first time in hundreds of years, and you're taking the time to apologise to me now?"

"-Should I not be?"

"You should have apologised when I found you two about to go at it on that pirate ship with Anne Bonney," Clara said, and smiled sadly. "Go, check on her. Apologize tomorrow. WIth a lot of big, beautiful places to see. And shopping. After that museum."

"And cake," said the Doctor. "I never did get those chestnuts."

"Goodnight, Doctor," said Clara, walking down the stairs.

"What did I do to deserve you, Clara Oswald?"

"More like, who did you do," Clara muttered. "Night!"

 

* * *

 

Missy had set herself up in her own room, as she always had over the centuries, but she'd left the door ajar. The Doctor let himself in, shucked his jacket and toed off his shoes. His belt buckle jingled as he took it off, and Missy rolled over.

"Sorry," he whispered. "I can go."

There was a rustle in the dark; Missy holding up the covers. He slid in, Missy wriggled over until she was pressed against his side, and the Doctor wrapped an arm around her waist. She tucked her head under his chin, sighed heavily, sniffed.

"I think," she said in Gallifreyan. "I should do something nice for Clara."

"She'll probably think you're trying to kill her."

She 'hmmed,' a vibration he felt in his chest. "I'll tell you to do something nice for her."

"Already have."

"I could resurrect-"

"No. No resurrections. Flowers, flowers are nice." the Doctor kissed the top of Missy's head. "We're going to Hindschler tomorrow, if you'd like to tag along."

"All of Braxiatel's stuff will be there. Why on earth would I willingly subject myself to your brother's terrible taste in art. He never forgave me for breaking that vase."

"You know - not the u'Linkya vase, in our last semester? That thing was foul. Thank you for saving Lungbarrow from…" The Doctor trailed off, started gently running his fingers through her hair. "He had some family records, that he wanted to keep off-world. I don't know if they're still there - the humans wouldn't have recognised them for what they were. You could write 'I am a donkey-fucking troglodyte' in Gallifreyan and they'd think it was the Mona Lisa of our people."

Missy went silent for a moment, rubbed her hand in small circles against his chest over one of his hearts. 

"Hindschler."

"Yes."

"Family records."

"Yes."

Another minute's silence. "My dear Doctor. You lied to me."

He sighed into her hair. "Yes. It made both of us feel better."

"You've forgotten too. Doctor." Missy moved her hand to take his, threaded their fingers together, squeezed.

"I forget, occasionally," he said. "And then they come back, and then they go away again."

"I did like your kids," said Missy. "I mean, nothing useful comes to mind. The freckles were appalling on the second one-"

The Doctor started laughing, and Missy did too. She tilted her head up, kissed him softly. 

"I don't remember, I'm sorry," she said. "If it helps, I'll come tomorrow. We both speak legalese. We'll find them."

"Bring flowers for Clara."

"I'm not planning on getting up before then." Missy shifted, rolled onto her side so her back pressed against the Doctor's chest.

"I - yeah, neither am I. Missy. Just so you know."

"Don't say it, you'll just make it weird. I know. We both know. Let's just go to sleep."

"Sounds like a plan."

 

* * *

 

 

A few days later, it was Clara's turn to roll over and stare at the ceiling. 

"That was," she said. "Wow."

"I know," said Teresa, pulling the duvet up around her shoulders. "You're welcome."

"Wow. Thank you."

"You know Clara, you don't have to say thank you, every time." 

Clara rolled over to face Teresa, smiled, leant over and kissed her lightly. "I know, but I've been a bit crazy the past few weeks."

"The past few weeks?"

"You know. You're wonderful."

"That I am." It was Teresa's turn to kiss Clara, running her hand through her hair. "Hey. Weird question. Your friend. With the book. The Grand Sci-Fi Fuckathon of Hitler and Stalin. Did they ever finish it?"

"Kind of. Hitler and Stalin - the characters, I mean. They sort of become nomads and wander round. Meet up occasionally. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if one of them ended up pregnant somehow, despite my friend saying that wouldn't happen."

"Because they're both men."

"Ah, well-" 

"Wait, the protagonist is a girl, I just got confused because you know. Stalin." Teresa gave Clara a sleepy smile. "Though Hitler and Stalin, raising a kid. That's a story I'd read. Wow, I'm falling asleep. I promise, this doesn't normally happen."

"It's okay," said Clara. "I'm pretty tired too."

 

They were woken up two hours later by the Doctor and Missy breaking into the flat. The air smelt vaguely of lime. Clara frowned.

"CLARA!" the Doctor shouted. "We need your kitchenaid again!"

 

 

**THE END.**

 


End file.
